My One Reflection
by GeminiGemelo
Summary: On the night before the stampede, Mufasa and Scar have one last conversation, only to discover that there is no escaping the fate that they themselves have made for one another. One-shot.


_**A/N: **_

_Hello, everyone. *waves* Here is another one-shot for all of you to read. I wrote it over the past several days for the contest on MLK, which is ongoing as of now (some concerns were brought up last time I did this, to which I say - I warned you. If you wish to keep the anonymous contest anonymous, no one is forcing you to read at this moment. :p)_

_If you aren't a part of MLK, then feel free to read my 25th story now. :] Perhaps it's not as good as my last one, but I think there might be something enjoyable in here._

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Wisdom was never something which came easily. Ironically, that was the most salient lesson he'd learned over the years: that there were always many trials, errors, and bad experiences. He'd been hailed as wise, and yet that very appellation made him laugh inside. Sure, he was better than when he had started off… but he felt he still had so much to learn. He knew the road to knowledge, to righteousness—one he was proud to admit he'd always tried to follow—was rocky and difficult. Mistakes were along the way. Some small and trivial, others heart-wrenchingly devastating. This much he knew, for he'd made his fair share of both of them.

He sighed, and clambered out of his humble den. Despite being king, he slept in the main quarters with the rest of his family. It just didn't seem right any other way. There was a short walk to the peak of the tall, scoping erratic they used as the base of their homeland. Pride Rock.

Now that he thought of it, he supposed he'd always found the landmark quite strange, and never had he seen anything else like it; though there be many hulking boulders between his kingdom and Kilimanjaro, none of them were stacked so auspiciously, one on top of the other. It was as though the two rocks were frozen into an eternal joining, the superior one lying across its partner so delicately and gracefully. If the lower one were to fall, the whole system would come crumbling down.

The sovereign stood on top of that upper peak now, the one hanging so securely in its balance. There was quite a strong wind up here, as always. The night air had been chilly as he walked, and the remnants of warmth under the crook of his arm, where his wife had nestled her head, were rapidly fading, replaced with the clear, biting cold of the darkened atmosphere. He wondered if she noticed his absence yet… he didn't want her and the child to feel alone. But he did need to clear his mind, and this seemed like the best place to do it.

His tail twitched in the pitch milieu, hazel eyes gazing out over his kingdom as the condensing fog of his suspirations rhythmically appeared and vanished. Tonight was certainly nippy. It was one of those cold, clear, crystal nights, where everything was shadowed in lurking darkness save for the sky, which, in its clarity, was as visible as a glass orb encompassing the earth. Stars lay, beyond counting, high in their celestial abodes, beyond the reach of any living being.

They illuminated the vast expanses of amber grass, which were occasionally interrupted by small groves of wild acacia trees. In the daytime, these would be host to herds of visiting giraffes. The soil, too, was fertile, and broken with hyaline springs; together the earth and water supported myriad types of animals: every creature in the Pridelands, from the boisterous elephant to the passive passerine, secretly sang the praises of home. And as he was their head—the master, patriarch, and royal keeper of the wild itself—his name was juxtaposed with that of the very kingdom whose grounds they tread upon.

All in all, this was all right, for things were as they should have been. And that was something he knew better than to take for granted, even if this state of perfect happiness only extended outside the confines of Pride Rock.

His head dipped imperceptibly, wispy locks of ruddy hair coasting into his field of view before his eyelids blackened it entirely. Then his nose scrunched, lightly exhaling a steaming stream of vapor as he lay mostly dormant in the tempestuous trap of his thoughts.

They didn't know it, the birds and the leopards and the antelopes, for they were kept blissfully naïve through it all. But the facts remained. The truth of his life was in full view; the cards he had been dealt lay face-up on the table. For in the end, there was a downhill for every uphill, be that on the flattest plain or across the staggering steppes of the Great Rift; every shot of happiness was weighed down with a sobering dose of sorrow.

One thing he had learned through his years was that life had a delicate balance, a way of straightening itself out. Things were shifted around: creatures died and their matter was scattered in every direction, and this fed the growing grasses. The herds grew and flourished and reproduced before dying and contracting once again. But nothing was ever truly added. Nothing was ever truly taken away.

Yes, the hand he had was different, unique… but there was the same mixture of darkness and light, of energy and substance. The cards were all of one deck, and were thus simply thrown back into the mix to be reshuffled and redistributed in a countless array of combinations. Only luck governed which hand was dealt, and there was no assistance to the individual in how they played it.

In this way, life may have seemed unfair, although truly this was only a reflection of its passivity. It set its rules like a framework and left the creatures it governed locked inside. The only one nature bowed to was time—a mistress as unseeing and as unchanging from her stubborn pace as could be, her immeasurably old and stony face apathetic to her ceaseless ways.

He could never turn back the gentle stream of sand in the endlessly-twirling hourglasses. They would never flow upwards, against the laws of nature—the experience he had was all hard-won, as there were no shortcuts and no ways to know of the future. The gifts of opportunity and chance would never be restored to him.

That was exactly what troubled him. There was no eraser for mistakes written far back in time. Alas, in the kingdom all was pleasant, and as perfect as they could have possibly hoped. But he suffered his own troubles, in accordance to the balance which was always, at long last, found.

For naught troubled him more than the unrest in his innermost sanctum. Because for this king, the greatest struggle came not from his kingdom, but from his own family… and his own self most of all.

His eyes snapped open, little doorways allowing in the light of the stars and the waning, lugubrious moon. It lay like a honey-colored scythe in the far corner of his vision. Inwardly, he sulked and stiffened and anticipation. Air pooled into his lungs, in and then out again, though this did little to calm him—his pupils narrowed accordingly, the reflective glint in them obscured by the billowing fog which swirled in front of his face.

This unrest was like a harbinger, a feeling which had not yet been associated with the present sights and sounds which his corporeal senses could identify. It was something else, something _beyond _what he could see and feel. He vaguely knew, somewhere in his mind, that soon—he wasn't sure when, but soon—things were going to go very awry.

He'd been having strange thoughts and feelings over the past few days; his normally tranquil sleep had been disrupted by vicious nightmares. Often times he would have strange visions in midday, when he was out and about in his kingly guise. Once he could have sworn he'd seen the lower portion of Pride Rock, the boulder which supported the peak he was standing on, fall down, the rest of their hub crumbling with it in a momentous shower of dust and thundering rocks… only to wake up and find that he had, in a display very uncharacteristic of him, fallen asleep while patrolling the borders out in the middle of the savanna.

The rocks still stood, as tall and majestic as always. But something was not normal. Something was not _right_. Whether it was with the land, or simply with himself, he wasn't certain of—only that affairs would soon take a drastic turn.

He wished he could calm his troubled mind. These nighttime excursions, once rare, had grown in their frequency and in their emotive strength. This normally regal king, confident and charismatic, was suddenly brooding and uncertain. Doubts crept in from various angles—for example, earlier in the day, he'd saved his son from a disastrous encounter in a bad part of the savannah, a place he had told him never to visit.

Now, the optimistic and energetic individual he had once been, and perhaps still was, would have simply chocked it up to a childhood mishap… for he knew firsthand, from his own childhood, that combining a mischievous and adventurous boy with rules never worked very well. Youth were always bound to burst through barriers, to boldly challenge everything they saw and perceived. Yet this was not his train of thought, and in a way, he mourned that. Something in him was _worried_, and as wrought as a cold, iron fence. There had to have been more to it… the attackers had to have known, they had to have been plotting… right? Wasn't it normal to be concerned? To doubt? For what if he couldn't, in spite of his efforts, keep his family safe after all?Or his kingdom?

Oh, he _knew_ there was no reason to look into it so deeply, as he had little evidence of any certain conspiring—the young prince had brashly wandered beyond their lands, and had unfortunately suffered a consequence of that. But his sentiments had, from somewhere deep within, pointed elsewhere.

Alas, it was not fitting to be paranoid; individuals were, as far as he was concerned, innocent until proven guilty… regardless of whomever or wherever they were. He had effectively taken control and solved the issue at hand. There was no rational, logical reason to be frightened.

No, no. Being paranoid, and thus afraid, did not befit a sovereign well at all. Yet he could not prevent that long-suppressed part of his instinct from roiling up like a licking flame when he heard footsteps behind him. Another sign of his imperfection, his growing… unrest…

Traditionally, only sovereigns were allowed up on the peak of Pride Rock, unless explicit permission had been given by the king ordaining otherwise. At this point, it could be one of three individuals, though through the night air he could not see who was lurking in the murky shadows just beyond his field of view.

Tentatively he raised a voice, hoping to see who owned the soft sounds of paws on rock, or the sharp glints of green light bursting out from behind the stone. Somehow he doubted that this was his adventurous and playful son, who, in his innocence, would be coming out at these godforsaken hours simply to enjoy his father's presence… though it wouldn't particularly surprise him if that were so, either.

"… _Hello_…?" His deep voice, even in uncertainty, boomed powerfully and echoed across the top of the expanse. There was a slight rumble in his throat, a sharp and perhaps demanding edge subtly intoned into the syllables. "Who is it?"

The prowler made no further effort to conceal himself, if, indeed, he'd even bothered at all to begin with. His tone was immediately dour and agitated, a spiteful baritone emerging from pursed lips and a grizzled muzzle. There was something tight-fisted in the way he carried himself, something penurious… as though he refused to allow his monarch—his elder brother, in fact—any solace the evening would have had to offer.

It worked, for the troubled being stiffened without knowing why.

The prince removed himself from the shadows completely, but in doing so revealed a sinuous body equally darkened all the way through—inside and out. His orbits were like black pits, as unfeeling as the cold vacuum of space, and his glaring green eyes were not much better when they shone like piercing stars from the depths of their sockets.

"Please, _Your Highness_, why so demanding? I thought you'd be _tired out _fighting those mangy, good-for-nothing, _spirits-damn _hyenas. Thought you'd be eager for your _beauty sleep_." He slunk up to him, heavy lids halfway concealing his irritated, vaguely cynical expression. It was clear that, for whatever reason, he hadn't slept well either; the skin below his eyes was shaded and, like the rest of his somber face, considerably drooping. His ribs protruded visibly from the dark pelt on his sides, making his skeleton seem as that of a ship's. Like a withered, wind-blown plant, he was gently wasting away in what appeared to be, in the views of the king and his kin, mild passivity.

He was tired, for sure.

Yet there was a tangible bitterness, almost a disappointment, in his irreverent tone that was hard to ignore, and the elder of them didn't quite know why it was there. Rather, the truth—like the rest of him—was shrouded in a curious enigma, artfully concealed from his view. What did he have to be so upset about? Nobody knew, as it seemed to them that he did nothing much of any degree of importance. When he wasn't sleeping in a laconic haze or out catching food for himself, his whereabouts and, ultimately, his thoughts and intentions remained unknown.

Not that most of them really cared about his whereabouts: as it was, he was estranged from nearly the whole of their community. He'd parted with his friends long ago, and his greatest mark of shame—_his _greatest failure—was in the scar, a strip of hairless pink tissue which lay, indented into the surface of his flesh, above his eyebrow, continuing across his cheek so that the deep extension of the wound narrowly missed his eye.

It was visible, even in the midst of the night. The soft, honeyed glow of the moon reflected the concave skin ominously, as a light dash framing his verdure gaze.

"What are you doing?"

The king looked at him in a way that wasn't quite derisive, but perhaps demanding. He stiffened and straightened up as the smaller sibling drew uncomfortably near.

"Ah, now I believe the roles of interrogator and victim are being played by the wrong persons, wouldn't you agree? Or should _I _not be asking _you _that question?"

The dark eyes of the older brother shifted sheepishly away, an uncharacteristic aversion borne into him at his scathing, caustic tone and his unfriendly presence. But he didn't want to let him take control of the situation—no, he wouldn't let him simply have his way to such a degree.

He felt the words hanging off the tip of his tongue, ready to be driven like darts into the still and terse air—'_you shouldn't be up here_'. His lips puckered; he drew in breath. Looking his brother in the eye, he prepared to put his foot down.

But somehow, somewhere along the line, he just couldn't do it.

He exhaled in something akin to resignation, his soft acquiescence closely paired with the budding memories sprouting in the front of his mind. For in a time long ago, before the eventual death of their parents, the two of them had both wanted to be king. In fact, as far as he knew, his brother still wanted the position very much so, as he had been vying for it against his sibling since he was a tyke.

He stood no fair chance, being as young as he had been. When their father had eventually met his demise, the eldest had been chosen as the most responsible and experienced individual to run the kingdom. The crown prince had inherited the throne, leading him to where he was now.

That was many years ago. But he still remembered the days when the old king, his predecessor, had taken the two of them up there, letting them enjoy the sunbeams and the pleasant view of the kingdom that they, coupled with the extra height and wide open spaces, offered. They were memories from the nostalgic days of a pleasant youth, when brothers were as close as they should have been and the world had not yet grown vast and daunting and complicated... nothing could bring those back now, and there was only so much he could do.

One of those things was a concession allowing his younger brother to take sojourns to the peak when he pleased. At the time it had seemed only fair, in light of how he had enjoyed those trips as a young cub even more than his elders. Often he would run and play around, trying to see all the sights that the rock offered… but more often than not he was trying to beat his brother at something. Could he see those elephants way over there, far in the distance? Was his vision as sharp, as astute? How quickly could he run down the slope, and then ascend back up it again?

These games, albeit being competitive, were little more than childish fare. He'd grown out of it in time, though he still returned to the peak often. The eldest always suspected, though he never asked, that it was solely because it made him feel more kingly. Like he was powerful, important… the view from the top of the rock no longer proffered him a childish sense of awe and wonder, but rather a dangerous lapping of water from a rushing river which, if he chose to dive in and sate his thirst, would only drag him away in the end.

He always wondered at the state of his brother's mind, and was often concerned over it. But his shrouded eyes offered no view into his soul—his blank and empty pupils only held the reflection of whoever beheld them. He had no insight as to just what desires lay inside his being, and he had only inklings of an idea which stretched farther than he could imagine. What he had thought to be a prolonged dream from youth was really just the tip of a massive, hulking iceberg about to break and wreak havoc.

His emerald eyes held the green flecks of envy in them, and these specks had reached into and mottled his blighted, rotting core. It blended in so well, it matched the color of his irises... just as his deception was hidden by his seemingly submissive nature. The chameleon blended in with its foliage, and the older brother was the fly caught unaware by its movement in the bushes.

And yet here the younger brother was, standing uneventfully on the royal peak as though he'd always been meant for it.

"You never answered my question," the king pondered solemnly. "Why _are _you here?"

His question was offered in genuine curiosity. What reason had he to move from the comforts of his den into the cold night? Surely he didn't mean to simply take a _walk_? Alas, he'd assumed that, like himself, he was perhaps troubled by something and roused from his sleep… but if that was the case, then what was keeping him awake? What did _he _have to be worried about?

The older studied him closely, hoping to glean a hint from his taut expression… but there was nothing aside from a cloyingly sweet and yet insincere simper which had spread across his maw, showing his teeth from under his dry lips.

"I'm on the peak. What else is there?" There was an arrogant tone in his voice that almost dared a contradiction. It was as though he were proud of this position, high above any of the others living at Pride Rock. He laughed, though it was more like a crackling wheeze that was emitted, hoarse and constrained, from his constricted throat. "And what of you? Are you… _afraid _of something?"

He paused, that unsettling grin still kept on his face, teeth displayed and glimmering with wetness in the night. Something about him seemed off… different… as though he were hinting at something. Alas, the king was used to his malice, his forked tongue and his oily voice… but there was a twinge of hidden amusement which glimmered in his eye. He was laughing to himself, vaguely, under his breath. And he hadn't yet called him 'brother'.

"Afraid you'd lose your son today?"

"Yes," he responded flatly, as though the answer should have been obvious, "… of course I was. And what do you know of all this, anyway? It just happened a few hours—"

"—Honestly, it shocks me how little you and your _precious _little group believe in me… You don't think I was _concerned _for the well-being of my favorite nephew?" Then, more as an aside, "… and I thought _I _was the cynic of us."

"Brother, because he's your _only_ nephew. Whatever happened to him being a hairball?"

"_Hm-hm-hm_…" he chuckled, a seemingly amused expression playing across his lips. The slight crook towards the edges gave the impression that he was smiling as he paced around his ruler. "You aren't still bitter over _that_, are you? And whatever happened to calling me your brother, hmm? Enlighten me."

The edges of a growl formed in the elder's throat. Yes, he was still bitter about that blatant disrespect. The dark one was the son of royalty, but he was not the sovereign in these parts. He had been expected to appear at the new heir's public presentation to the world… but he was conspicuously absent.

Oh, the queen had been _livid_.

He'd been sent, of course, to remedy the situation—as though he were his brother's keeper. But at this point, however, he doubted there was much he could do. His younger sibling would not take his advice. He would not heed his warnings. And he most certainly _would not_ change his position on the subject.

He couldn't believe the gall he had had; first it was to insult the newborn prince, and next nothing short of an overt condescension. Of course he'd been angry over it… he had every right to be.

But as far as what he mentioned… well, that much could not be denied. He was right. It was in an odd, twisted way… but he was right nonetheless.

"Please… let it go. I was angry at you. What you did was wrong."

"And what was it I did? Explain this to me… so the _jury _can hear you."

He nodded up towards the milky stars above, the resting place of their ancestors, the great spirits, and their deity, who had created the great earth they lived in. There was a clairvoyance inside them which kept its watchful eye on every living creature, that knew and saw, in their omnipotence, the truth of things. He sighed, and his brother continued.

"Everyone seems to think that I'm some kind of _monster_, because of one mistake I made. Do you remember?"

There was a long, terse pause in the air. None deigned to interrupt it until several moments had passed, hoping that waiting would ease the discomfort of the situation. But there was no remedy. And he knew there would be none other than confronting the situation directly.

'_You are no brother of mine'_—oh yes, he remembered saying those wretched words. The younger sibling had never forgiven him. It was the same night he had received the scar across his eye… and always, to this day, they blamed each other, one to the other. There was no clear culpability, no place to lay the censure. In the eyes of their peers, however, the estranged prince had drawn the short stick.

It never stopped. From there their relationship degraded like a falling rock. A millstone tied around the neck of any cordiality they had had. And all the while the dark one was still staring him in the eye, demanding.

"Yes. I do." He cleared his throat. "But tell me… why… why couldn't we have forgotten it? Why do you hold on to the mistakes of long ago?"

"_Hmptt," _the younger sibling rebutted. This was where they always differed, for one lay in hope and optimism and light, and the other wallowed in despair and darkness and pessimism. "Always the idealistic one of us, weren't you?"

"Please," the elder pled, extending his hand with a desperate expression. "Forgive me, brother. For our future."

His lips twisted into a wrought countenance, and a glimmer of hurt was apparent in his eyes. "No. No, don't think I'll simply _forget _the ways in which you've wronged me, _big brother_." The acerbity in his tone added to his cold, spiteful look. But this could only last so long. After mere moments his voice had faded to a whisper, and the pain in his voice was more apparent than anything he'd heard from him in a long time. "_And don't think I'll let you do that to me again_."

The king withdrew his paw, face tightening into a firm, almost severe expression. He'd given it his best shot—there was nothing he could do, no way to undo the mistakes of the past. Now he would, as he had done before, simply have to deal with the consequences. Time healed all wounds, and nature had a balance... it would wrap itself up eventually. He would be prepared, come what may.

Alas, he knew that his father, his mother, and all the others were up there watching them both… and many times, fervently, he had sought their protection, in case his unrest was a signal from their very souls. He hadn't heard an answer, but then, such answers were truly rare. There was a planet full of suffering, entreating animals to keep track of, and then—in the end—what he sought so much to avoid may have just been meant to be. For his fate lay in the cards he had been dealt, and sometimes there was nothing to do but fold, lest he lose disastrously.

It was these beings who created time herself, and Mother Nature, and Lady Luck, and all the other things that simple-minded mortals believed in. They were elevated, living in a world all their own. One which he might enter one day, were he worthy of the honor.

In short, they were the reason life was the way it was.

Alas, things would sort themselves out in the end. Mistakes were made, and lives were lost. The mistakes made would end them all someday… for after all, the biggest challenge he had to face was not one of running the kingdom, or trying to ensure prosperity in the land. No. Rather, it was his own nature—which reflected every being's tendency to sin and make mistakes—and the relationships with the ones that mattered most to him.

He could try his best to lead a perfect life, but he was not as perfect as he wished he could be. Someday, eventually, he would fail. And fall he would.

* * *

_So, I think the prose did get a little too flowery in places, and the action was not as good as Imperfection's (which did place first, by the way). I'm up against more competition than ever, so wish me luck. I'll need it._

_In any case, I'm also going to do something I've never done before... and I'm going to give this story a dedication (I waited purposefully until the end for this, just in case, as this is somewhat personal)._

_Friday marked the birthday of a friend of mine, Autumn. She would have been 17. If you can read this where you are now, I'd just like to say that I was looking forward to getting to know you, and it's a shame that you had to leave._

_We still miss you. Thank you for teaching me a lesson that I desperately needed in that time of my life - that we must always live life to the fullest, because it will not always be there. It could have just as easily been me, or anyone else, in your place._

_Semel solum vivis. That is the moral. Thank you all for reading. _

_- Twin_


End file.
